Mr. Chow is among a growing group of celebrities, bloggers and regular Internet users who are allowing advertisers to send commercial messages to their personal contacts on social networks. For the last month, he has used the services of Ad.ly, a start-up based in Los Angeles, and Izea, based in Orlando, Fla., to periodically surrender his Twitter stream to the likes of Charter Communications, the Make a Wish Foundation and an online seminar about working from home.

In October, Mr. Chow’s income from Twitter ads was around $3,000. “I get paid for pushing a button,” he said.

I’m not adverse to putting an ad on the back of my book. (Though I say it, it’s a purely theoretical statement. I could cancel my kids’ Christmas and Hannukah and print my book instead, foregoing ads. We’ll see.) I’ve been in my own business once before and I didn’t whore myself. That statement didn’t matter much to the U.S Trustee for the Eastern District of New York Bankruptcy Court.

Keepin it real is purely theoretical.

Managing our businesses whether they are tea salons or books is something I’ve been barking at authors do to more aggressively for a while. The business may not entail commerce if said author decided to give her work away for free, but that right there is a business model which needs a plan.

Oh this is a whole ‘nother conversation, then. At first I read your response and I was like, Yeah, of course.

Wait.

Then we’re talking about what the implications of an advertising relationship is. Who’s endorsing whom? Would American Girl Place put an ad on my book, 29 Jobs and a Million Lies, where I detail writing porno scripts and start a punk record label? Absolutely not. They wouldn’t endorse me. And I wouldn’t recommend my prospective audience to their prospective buyers.

The people who would endorse me are not the ones we hate. *Would* being the operative word. Could I call up Coke or Hershey’s (yuck) and ask them for $200 and an ad? Sure, but they’d laugh me out of town. They are not that desperate for new eyes to do it.

I’m not in advertising. I don’t like it and I don’t respond to it. I certainly don’t represent most people though. For those independent authors who might think about putting an ad on their book, I’d be curious as to what advertisers would think about it–because they’d then have to put some intern on reading the contents of the book to ensure nothing is inflammatory. Clearly not going to happen.